‘The photo was a sad endnote to one of the most vitriolic media and social media uproars I can recall, one in which the athletes were the casualties.’
Photograph: Antonio Lacerda/EPA

The image that will stay with me long after the last competitor leaves Rio this week is a decidedly un-Olympic one. Caster Semenya, the women’s 800m gold medallist, extends her arms to fellow competitors Melissa Bishop of Canada and Lynsey Sharp of Great Britain. Sharp, who came in sixth, holds a tearful Bishop, who took fourth, in a tight embrace. Rather than respond to Semenya they remain in their embrace ignoring her. The photo was a sad endnote to one of the most vitriolic media and social media uproars I can recall, one in which the athletes were the casualties. And the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) did nothing to quell it.

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Semenya’s athleticism was attributed to a single molecule – testosterone – as though it alone earned her the gold, undermining at once her skill, preparation and achievement. South Africa as a nation has pushed back with #handsoffcaster, coming to the defence of one of the world’s most scrutinised athletes despite her having done nothing wrong and competing with the support of the court of arbitration for sport (Cas).

It didn’t have to be this way. Instead of quashing the media storm, the IAAF aggravated it, continuing to fail in its articulation and management of the issue. On the eve of the Olympics, IAAF president Sebastian Coe said they would challenge the currently suspended policy that places a limit on a female athlete’s natural testosterone levels.

He then issued an additional 11th-hour avowal just before the 800m finals, which seemed to be timed specifically to cast doubt on Semenya’s right to compete. He immediately followed this statement with a halfhearted and telling reminder that “these are human beings,” knowing full well that his comments would throw into question not only Semenya’s participation but others’ too. A tinderbox was left smouldering, one breath of accusation was all that was needed to ignite the “debate” once more. Coe fomented an atmosphere that divided women athletes from their peers and even pitted them against each other.

So it’s no surprise that athletes such as Sharp, who have worked just as hard and sacrificed just as much, may feel frustrated and denied even though they weren’t, and how, in anger, grace failed them. In an outsized display of entitlement, the women made comments that called into question and eclipsed the entire podium, such as Poland’s Joanna Jozwik, who finished fifth between Bishop and Sharp, saying: “I’m glad I’m the first European, the second white” to cross the line. It’s unsporting behaviour they will hopefully look back on and think better of.

It’s impossible not to note the optics of this controversy – the three black women from sub-Saharan Africa ebullient on the podium and the three white global north women feeling they should be there instead – because they signify a great deal. Their polarised perspectives stem from the policy regarding hyperandrogenism and the asymmetry regarding who it burdens and who it benefits.

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To be clear: the policy harms all women athletes. But it’s no secret that it disproportionately harms black and brown women from the global south. Women from the global north benefit from a policy in which the prevailing notion of fairness doesn’t target them. Sharp’s comment about relying on “the people at the top sorting it out” further divulged as much.

The “we” here is key. For Semenya and others, the “people at the top” are not initiating policies that reflect their interests. It’s a familiar pattern where those with power write policies benefiting the more powerful. Likewise when Sharp said, “We know how each other feel,” it’s easy to see how the Europeans’ awareness of each other’s views can reinforce feelings of injustice. The problem is that they don’t know how the athletes being scrutinised feel and what seems unfair to them.

It is also clear the increased scrutiny is reserved for women perceived as not feminine enough, which is the bedrock of what is in the policies. For example, it is stated that: “The individuals concerned often display masculine traits and have an uncommon athletic capacity in relation to their fellow female competitors.” Gender variance has always incited scrutiny, and this scrutiny is often racialised. Living outside of these normative racialised gendered expectations means coming under scrutiny and probing in ways invisible to the institutions and individuals doing the looking.

This was not lost on many observers, including Semenya, who said: “It is not about discriminating people and looking at people in terms of how they look, how they speak and how they have run … It’s not about being masculine. It’s about sports.”

If this were a simple case of sour grapes it would fade with few caring. But the stakes are far higher. The IAAF is going back to Cas to defend a policy that it accepts discriminates against women. A policy whose explicit aim is to make women slower. That benefits no one.